Sami Zayn went to Adam Pearce to complain about Jeff Hardy and the two teaming together on the SmackDown Survivor Series team, so Pearce booked a match between the two with the loser being booted off the team. Ultimately, Hardy would win that match, so Zayn is gone.
What’s interesting here is who was standing next to Pearce when he had the aforementioned chat with Zayn:
That would be NXT 2.0’s Von Wagner, who debuted on the rebranded show in a match for the NXT championship before moving on to a tag team with Kyle O’Reilly. That’s the same O’Reilly whose contract with WWE is reportedly up next month, and Wagner showing up on SmackDown is already being taken as a possible sign that O’Reilly could indeed be on the way out.
There was never any mention of Wagner’s presence here, outside of Pearce saying “we were just talking about making (SmackDown’s) team stronger.” He wasn’t even named. The obvious hint is there that he’ll be taking Zayn’s place at Survivor Series, however.
Stay tuned.
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